Hollywood: Trash or Garbage?
James Gunn Edition

Matt McGloin has scoops about the upcoming James Gunn Superman sequel, Man of Tomorrow, being canceled, Batgirl-style, with all money spent so far being taken as a tax write off.

Or, he suggests, Man of Tomorrow might be given a cheap post-production budget and just dumped on HBO Max.

I don't think this is true.

But if it is true, I have a theory about it. Grace Randolf, an idiot SJW biased critic who was nevertheless right that James Gunn was a very poor fit for DC, has been predicting that the new regime at Skydance wants to give Gunn "notes" about the movie -- demands about what must be cut (for example, Supergirl's presence) and what new scenes need to be shot in reshoots.

But James Gunn's contract states that he gets final cut over the movie.

So: Is it possible that Skydance is putting out word they will straight-up cancel the movie (which has already been almost completely shot) if James Gunn does not give up on his final cut power and accept studio notes?

That's a scenario that seems plausible to me.

That said, I still don't know if we can credit any of these "scoops" as true. This seems like a really, really big decision to make. This is an expensive movie. Canceling it saves the money for post-production (editing, music, and of course special effects and marketing), but cancelling it locks in the substantial money already spent as a loss.

I know, I know:

They write it off, Jerry. They write it off.

Posted by: Kramer

If Gunn calls their bluff and says "Fine, cancel it," do they go forward with the threat?

I don't know.

Like I said, I don't know how much of these claims, from a fairly obscure geek-culture news site, are true.

The first article from Matt McGloin:

Man of Tomorrow's release is an open question inside Skydance.

"All options are on the table," per what our Skydance Paramount insider was told Tuesday night from inside the company.

That covers the Superman sequel's July 9, 2027 theatrical date, and everything short of it.

It comes a day after the same insiders told us Skydance expects the movie to lose up to $100 million, with David Corenswet out as Superman.

The math is the problem.

"Now Ellison and Latcham have a $250M pile of ass sitting there waiting for post production, VFX, reshoots, and at least $125M in marketing. Total easily over $400M if they release it."

"BIG HUGE IF," said the insider's friend inside the company.

The movie wrapped filming in August, and James Gunn finished the assembly cut in early October.

Post-production, effects, and any reshoots now happen under the regime that fired Gunn to take over the final cut.

And what is on the screen is its own problem. Our insiders trashed the plot itself, down to what Wonder Woman is doing in it.

The same read is now circulating outside the company.

Columnist Dan Marcus, host of The Film Frontier, posted Tuesday night: "My friend predicted to me earlier today that MAN OF TOMORROW might just get dumped on the new HBO MAX/Paramount Plus streaming platform, and I hate to say it, but I think he could be right."

Shown the post, our insider replied: "I was told tonight all options are on the table."

...

Then there is Enty, the lawyer behind the Crazy Days and Nights blind item site, who ran this as Blind Item #5 dated November 10: "The comic studio heads were fired. They didn't quit. Their boss wants to sell off the entire comic book universe to help get rid of some of that $100B debt."

So that kind of makes sense -- except for the fact that due to the collapse of DC on Film, the entire DC pile of intellectual property is currently at a low value. You'd want to bring in a Fluffer to get its value up a bit before selling.

Still, some talk about DC being "cursed" and maybe the thinking is that its value will never increase.

Oh, and it should be pointed out that due to copyright protections finally being allowed to expire, Superman and Batman (at least in their earlier forms) will become public domain in the 2030s. And then a whole bunch of characters start dropping into public domain: Wonder Woman, Joker, Captain America, Flash, etc. All the characters created in the initial burst of of the golden age of comics.

(Most of the characters created by Marvel, except for the early ones like Cap, Human Torch, and Namor the Sub-Mariner, will be protected for a while longer, as they were mostly created in the early sixties.)

McGloin also claims that James Gunn is "setting fire" to DC on his way out the door.

Some of these claims seem dubious, but McGloin tells him that his Warner Bros/Discovery sources previously tipped him, accurately, that Hal Jordan would be killed in "Lanterns" and that Gunn was slated to be fired.

UPDATE: Variety confirms our report on Man of Tomorrow. Two sources now describe Gunn "setting fire" to DC on his way out, screaming matches over the cut included. The plot details leaked: a simp Superman and a lesbian Wonder Woman. Insiders reports are stating Man of Tomorrow may not get a theatrical release. We're told David Corenswet is done. Variety says Lanterns is canceled. THR reports David Ellison and Ynon Kreiz fired Gunn and Safran in person on the Warner Bros. lot; plus, Puck reports Skydance is already dismantling the Gunn DCU slate. TheWrap also says the goofy DCU is over and Ellison is mandating a return to Justice League.

...

They're the same insiders who first told us back in October 2025 that Gunn would be out, who told us that Hal Jordan would die in Lanterns, and even that Daredevil: Born Again would be retooled.

His report from yesterday about "screaming matches" over the direction took Man of Tomorrow.

"MOT is dog s--, confirmed, bunch of random nobodies cameo without rhyme or reason. Plot is stupid, Superman is a simp again, and Wonder Woman is a lesbian. You heard that right. She and Hawkgirl 'meet cute' and bond while punching white straight 'evil' dudes."

That is our Skydance Paramount insiders, relaying word from inside the studio as the new regime decides what to do with the movie.

...

Per this leak, that is the pairing: a meet cute, a bond, and "evil" dudes to punch.

We have also been told Arjona's Wonder Woman is a one-and-done, so whatever happens in this movie, the character starts over under the new bosses.

The "random nobodies" complaint has a paper trail.

Our insiders said Man of Tomorrow is Gunn's last hurrah and Gunn was "kitchen sinking cameos and fan service, a lot of which may not even make it to the screen".

Script leaks described an event movie stuffed with two teams and characters DC has never put on screen.

A word about these rumored "kitchen sink cameos:" 1, they would make Superman a mere co-star in his own movie again, and 2, it would further goofify the DC universe by featuring Gunn's favorite type of character, misfit joke-characters, and 3, it would also reduce excitement for what Skydance hopes would re-invigorate the brand, a Justice League team-up. If you have Superman teaming up with half of the DC universe in every movie, it's not really a big deal when he teams up with other characters.

Variety confirms that Skydance wants to remove many of the cameos and "easter egg ephemera" from the film.

You might say, "But Gunn would use marginal/minor characters for his cameos and reserve the 'big guns' for a future Justice League movie."

But here's the thing: To a normie, any characters besides Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman are marginal/minor characters. The Flash is one of DC's top heroes but to a normie, he's just another weird side-character. Especially after Ezra Miller played him.

And on Monday, the insiders behind the Gunn firing exclusive said the new bosses call the movie "too bloated" and are not excited about it.

Although I almost can't believe they'd make Wonder Woman -- the most iconic female superhero in the world -- a lesbian, it should be remembered that leftists, feminists, and gay activists have been demanding she be made a lesbian (or at least bisexual) for a long, long time, and leftwing "creatives" have been bowing to that pressure to make many B- or C-list characters gay for a decade now.

Even if the "meet cute" were just a Star-Wars-like hint/suggestion that they might be gay, that would still establish Wonder Woman as canonically lesbian. The straight-to-gay sexuality-bending pipeline only goes in one direction. It never goes in the other direction.

Feh. Maybe Skydance should take Alfred's advice about how to deal with mad chaos agents: "Burn the whole forest down."

Update: It's also reported that Skydance asked Gunn and his partner Safran about their plans for the future and their progress on their alleged "ten year plan" of movies but the pair were secretive and evasive, which made up Skydance's minds for them.

Meanwhile, Jim Caviziel's action movie Ghost Soldier opened Tuesday for Veterans Day.

Also Godzilla Minus Zero is coming out, and supposedly it's as good or almost as good as the first one.

The newest trailer contains a spoiler at the end about what Godzilla might be fighting in this one.

I was going to write...

If you want to avoid that spoiler, watch the older trailer from two months ago.

...but I was wrong, that earlier trailer also contains the spoiler, just more subtle. But not that subtle.

So if you want to remain unspoiled, don't watch the trailers. Or stop them on the hero shot of Godzilla roaring at the camera near the end. But you better stop it quick after that, because that's when they drop the spoiler.

posted by Disinformation Expert Ace at 04:20 PM

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